My Son Amos Has a New Book Out, Part 2!

Our son Amos Jasper Wright IV is an urban planner by profession, but he has been writing and publishing fiction for some years. In 2018 his collection of short stories Nobody Knows How It Got This Good was published by Livingston Press. This summer his first novel, Petrochemical Nocturne, has appeared, also published by Livingston. 

When Nobody Knows came out, I naturally wrote a blog post about it. The Kirkus review of the book is here. An interview with him about the book is here. In October 2018 Amos appeared on a panel alongside two other writers with new short story collections at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. 

So here we are with Amos' first novel, Petrochemical Nocturne. Kirkus has reviewed this title, and so has Bill Plott for the Alabama Writers Forum. Bradley Sides interviewed Amos for the Alabama Writers Cooperative. Once again Amos will be appearing at the Louisiana Book Festival. 

Both books are available from Bookshop.org, a book vendor where every purchase supports independent bookstores. The link for Petrochemical is here and Nobody Knows is here. 

If you have read or do read either of these books, please go to their GoodReads pages, say a few words, and rate the book. In the first paragraph above the books' titles link to those pages. Of course, if you buy from Amazon or other outlet,  reviews there would be greatly appreciated. And you can always request that your local library purchase one or both titles. 

"A bristling, lurching, and often insightful investigation of the past."  Says Kirkus about Petrochemical

In his review, Bill Plott wrote about the novel, "Although a novel, this is also an extraordinary work of history. Using Cancer Alley as a setting, Wright has penned a book that is essentially about racism – the systemic and pervasive racism of not just the South but also the nation. Perhaps no white historian has told it with quite the passion that Wright brings to the table."

Alabama Authors Babs & Borden Deal

Babs and Borden Deal were a rare couple among writers--two very successful novelists from the 1950's through the 1970's. And since then they have both slipped into obscurity. Let's investigate their Alabama connections.

Babs Hodges was born in Scottsboro on June 23, 1929. After high school graduation she worked in Washington, D.C. as clerk/typist and as typist at Anderson Brass Company in Birmingham. She received a B.A. from the University of Alabama in 1952. Both she and Borden studied under legendary author and professor of creative writing Hudson Strode, although not at the same time. Strode taught at UA for more than 25 years and his students went on to publish over 50 novels and hundreds of short stories. 

She and Borden married in 1952 while both were in Tuscaloosa; Babs was his second wife. They divorced in 1975. The couple had three children, son Brett and daughters Ashley and Shane.

During much of their marriage they lived in Sarasota, Florida, where they circulated in the company of other writers including well-known crime and suspense novelist John D. MacDonald. Rumors of an affair between MacDonald and Babs resulted in MacDonald writing a letter to Borden denying it. [See Hugh Merrill's biography of MacDonald, The Red Hot Typewriter, 2000]

Borden was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, on October 12, 1922. After graduation from high school he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he worked on firefighting crews in the Pacific Northwest. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 until 1945, and then entered the University of Alabama and studied under Strode. He graduated with a B.A. in 1949. He moved to Mexico City College for graduate work; there he met his first wife. They had one child, but soon divorced.

The Deals remained in Tuscaloosa for a couple of years after the marriage and spent their time writing. Future author Wayne Greenhaw often watched the children so the pair could work. By 1954 the Deals were living in Scottsboro. While there Borden received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1957 and a residency at the MacDowell Colony for artists in New Hampshire in 1964. That same year the family moved to Sarasota. By that time Borden had published eight novels and Babs her first two. 

Deal published over 20 novels and around 100 stories during his life. Some were published under pseudonyms. After 1970 he also wrote a series of erotic novels published anonymously, a practice many authors have used to supply quick funds. Two of his novels appeared posthumously, They Are All Strangers (1985) and The Platinum Man (1989). Babs published twelve novels.

Borden died of a heart attack in Sarasota on January 22, 1985. Babs, who lived at the time in Gulf Shores, died in a Montgomery hospital on February 20, 2004.

I never met Borden or any of the children, but I did meet Babs in the late 1970's. She was living in Auburn while her daughters were in school there. She and Dianne were friends when I met my future wife, who hadd met Babs through daughter Ashley. I remember Babs as a funny, earthy lady. 

Borden has entries in Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Alabama; Babs has neither. In his 2001 book Vanishing Florida, David T. Warner includes a memoir of Borden whom he knew in Sarasota. Babs does have an entry in the Alabama Literary Map and like Borden appears in various reference books covering Southern and/or American authors. Borden's papers are in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. That collection includes sculptures of Babs and Borden by Sara Mayfield, a fellow Alabama writer. 

Alabama has had at least two other couples who were both widely published authors, C. Terry Cline and Judith Richards and the Covingtons, Dennis and Vicki. 

Further comments follow many of the images below. 

This novel, Babs' fifth, first appeared in 1968. The following year she received the Alabama Author Award from the state library association for the book. Dianne has told me Babs once informed her that the book was loosely based on real Tuscaloosa events.

On December 3, 1979, NBC broadcast a TV movie adaptation of that novel under a new title. The film featured an all-female cast that included Paula Prentiss, Tina Louise, Loretta Swit, Stella Stevens, Shelley Fabares and Sondra Locke. 

A TV-movie tie-in reprint of the novel appeared in 1979.

Her first novel appeared in 1959.

Babs' second novel, originally published in 1961, was reprinted by the University of Alabama Press in 1990. That is the most recent reprint of any of her works. In its review of the reprint, Library Journal declared, "This is a southern writer who can be appreciated by all." (15 September 1990, p. 105)

This thriller was published in 1973.

She is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Scottsboro.

Source: Find-A-Grave

Her 1969 country music novel is dedicated to friend, fellow writer and onetime baby sitter Wayne Greenhaw, who has left a remembrance of the Deals in his essay in The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers. The book was "really about Hank Williams" she told Clarke Stallworth in the article discussed below. 

In this 1962 novel, Deal's characters all work at night. 

This novel appeared in 1975.

Other novels include The Grail (1964), Fancy's Knell (1966), Summer Games (1972), The Reason for Roses (1974) and Goodnight Ladies (1978). The Grail was a football novel in which the star quarterback falls in love with the coach's wife. The book is based on the legends of King Arthur; for background on football she consulted Bear Bryant and Gene Stallings. 

This article by Clarke Stallworth appeared in the Birmingham News 26 March 1982. In it she laments the "bestseller" mentality of publishers and notes that after 25 years her publisher Doubleday doesn't "want me any more." She mentions the completed manuscript for a thirteenth novel. Perhaps it is among her papers, also at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.  

Her published short fiction includes:

DEAL, BABS H(odges) (1929-2004) (chron.)
• * A Chocolate Cake, (vi) Redbook Jul 1964
• * The Crystal Mouse, (sl) Ladies’ Home Journal Feb 1973
• * High, Lonesome World, (ss) Cosmopolitan Jun 1963
• * The House Guest, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1967
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (UK) Sep 1967
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1968 (var.2)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #10 1982
• * Make My Death Bed, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1960
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1960 (var.1)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #22 1986
• * Pride, (vi) Redbook May 1964
• * To Ride an Elephant, (vi) Redbook Aug 1965
• * The Twilight Corner, (ss) McCall’s Feb 1961
• * With Love from Joe, (ss) Redbook Jan 1964

Source: FictionMags Index

On June 27, 1961, an adaptation of her story "Make My Death Bed" appeared on the Alfred Hitchcock series. The thirty-minute program was broadcast in the show's sixth season. As of this writing a video of the episode is available here. 

This 1976 novel was adapted as a two-part movie for television and broadcast in 1988. 

Borden's second novel was published in 1957 and explores the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority to north Alabama. This book and one by fellow Alabama author William Bradford Huie served as the basis for the 1960 film Wild River  starring Lee Remick and Montgomery Clift. 

This anthology published in 1976 contains Deal's story "A Try for the Big Prize" that first appeared in Hitchcock's magazine in May 1961.

This 1959 novel about southern hill country music served as the basis of the Broadway musical A Joyful Noise in 1966.

This novel appeared in 1965.

This novel was published in 1974. 

The Advocate (1968) is the middle novel of a "political trilogy" that also included The Loser (1964) and The Winner (1973). 

As he had done with the early novel Dunbar's Cove and the TVA, this 1970 book explored the effects of massive change on the South. In addition to that theme in his novels, Deal also wrote about basic human characteristics such as ambition, lust, greed, infidelity and a young man's coming of age.

This photograph on the back cover of Interstate was taken by fellow author John D. MacDonald. 

The first part of this Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color episode was  broadcast on March 8, 1964, and the second part a week later. The film was based on a story by Borden, probably "Watermelon Moon" first published in Argosy (UK) in February 1963.

Borden's published short stories include:

DEAL, BORDEN; [born Loysé Youth Deal] (1922-1985); (about) (chron.)

• * Beauregard Bugleboy III, (ss) Argosy (UK) Sep 1965
• * The Big Bajoor, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1962
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #13 1983
• * A Bottle of Wine, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1956
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspense Magazine Mar 1957
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #5 1979
• * The Cattywampus, (ss) Argosy Jan 1963
  • Argosy (UK) Jul 1963
• * The Christmas Hunt, (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Dec 3 1960
  • The Saturday Evening Post Dec 1982
• * Cornered, (ss) Argosy Dec 1951
• * The Day the Lion Came to Town, (ss) McCall’s May 1962
• * Death of a Lawman, (ss) Verdict Jan 1957
• * Death on the Avenida, (vi) Collier’s Sep 16 1955
• * Dunbar’s Cove, (n.) Scribner’s 1957
  • Ladies’ Home Journal Nov 1957
• * Flesh-Eaters, (ss) Argosy (UK) Jul 1960
• * The Followers, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Aug 1958
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1959 (var.4)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #6 1980
• * The Frightened Ones, (ss) Adventure Apr 1956
• * Get-Away, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Nov 1961
• * The Gothic Room, (ss) The Saint Magazine Sep 1967
• * Harmony Valley, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jul 1966
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1967 (var.3)
• * Holiday for an Unhappy Man, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1959
  • Argosy (UK) Sep 1961
• * Hunters, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Jan 1959
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1959 (var.1)
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #16 1983
• * A Kiss for Choice, (ss) 1959
  • Argosy (UK) Mar 1960
• * A Long Way to Go, (n.) 1965
  • Woman’s Journal May, Jun 1966
• * Make Your Pitch, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Apr 1962
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1962 (var.4)
• * A Mule Named Tony, (ss) Argosy Feb 1964
• * Murder by Remote Control, (nv) Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Nov 1958
• * My Brother’s Killer, (??) Collier’s Jul 11 1953
• * My Summer Vacation, (ss) Rogue Jul 1961
• * A Night for Hounds, (ss) Argosy Feb 1951
  • Trap of Gold and Other Great Adventure Stories from Argosy 1952
• * One Last Bull, (ss) Adventure May 1951
• * The Patternmaker, (ss) Rogue Jul 1963
• * The Saint, (ss) Rogue Aug 1964
• * The Secret Box, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Feb 1960
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Sampler Fll 1960 (var.2), Fll 1960 (var.3)
• * Small-Town Cop, (ss) Mercury Mystery Magazine Aug 1958
  • Mercury Mystery Magazine (UK) May 1963
• * Snipe Hunt, (ss) Argosy (UK) Feb 1964
• * The Steeper Cliffs, (ss) Pocket Book Weekly Nov 24 1956
• * The Strange Gig, (ss) Playboy Nov 1963
• * “The Tailor-Made Wife”, (ss) Redbook Feb 1958
• * Talk Your Way Out of Death, (ss) This Week Mar 11 1956
  • The Creasey Mystery Magazine Mar 1957
• * The Taste of Melon, (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Aug 25 1962
  • The Saturday Evening Post Sep 1985
• * A Time for Knowing, (ss) Prairie Schooner Fll 1950
• * Tough Cop, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Jun 1963
  • Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (UK) Oct 1963
  • Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Australia) Dec 1963
• * A Try for the Big Prize, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May 1961
  • Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology #1 1976
• * Watermelon Moon, (ss) Argosy (UK) Feb 1963
• * A Woman’s Choice, (ss) Jack London’s Adventure Magazine Oct 1958
• * You Understand?, (ss) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Dec 1979
• * “Argonotes”, uncredited, (bg) Argosy Feb 1951

Source: FictionMags Index

Alabama Book Covers (15): Robert McCammon

Robert McCammon grew up in East Lake and graduated from Banks High School. After his first novel Baal appeared in 1978, he became one of the most successful writers of horror fiction as that genre boomed from the 1970's into the 1990's. In 1992, after publishing thirteen novels, he tired of the horror writer pigeonhole and took a ten-year break. In 2002 he returned to publishing his fiction with Speaks the Nightbird. He has published ten more books since then. Thus the covers below are only a small sample of his output. 

You can learn more about McCammon, his reading schedule and books on his website. He continues to live in the Birmingham area, one of the rare very successful Alabama authors who has remained in the state his entire career. 

I must admit I've only read one McCammon novel so far, They Thirst, and I highly recommend it. The book is both juicy horror and well-written. I have several other McCammon titles on my shelves and fully intend to read those too.

Alabama Book Covers (13): Col. Prentiss Ingraham

In October 2015 I posted an entry in this series on Joseph Holt Ingraham, who wrote numerous popular novels before the Civil War and also served as an Episcopal priest in Mobile and elsewhere. Now I'd like to cover his son Prentiss, a Confederate veteran, soldier of fortune and extremely prolific author of dime novels who also had a connection with Alabama.

The son was born near Natchez, Mississippi, on December 28, 1843. He began his formal education at St. Timothy's Military Academy in Maryland, where John Wilkes Booth was a classmate. Then Ingraham returned to Mississippi and further education at Jefferson College in Washington. Founded in 1811 in the Mississippi Territory, that school operated almost continuously in one form or another until finally closing in 1964.

After college Ingraham enrolled at the Medical College of Alabama, which had opened in November 1859, thus making his appearance in Alabama. The Civil War interrupted his education there, and he enlisted in Wither's Mississippi Regiment. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and suffered wounds at Port Hudson and the Battle of Franklin.

After the war Ingraham spent several years as a soldier of fortune in hot spots around the world. He served under Juarez in Mexico during the rebellion against Maximillian; with Austrian forces in their war with Prussia; in Crete against the Turks, in the Khedive's army in Egypt, and in both the Cuban army and navy. In Cuba he was captured by Spanish forces and sentenced to death, but managed to escape.  

Perhaps tiring of all this activity, Ingraham had settled in London around 1870. Here he began his first attempts at writing stories and satiric sketches. Finding little success, he had moved to New York City by 1875. There he met and married Rose Langley, an author, composer and artist. They would eventually have a son and two daughters.

Ingraham continued writing in New York City, but by 1881 the wanderlust apparently returned. He headed west, where he encountered Buffalo Bill Cody among others. He soon joined Cody's Wild West Show. He also met the Powell brothers Frank, George and Will. Ingraham would later write fiction based on the lives of all these men.

Ingraham's first dime novel, The Masked Spy, had appeared in 1872. After his western adventures, he and his family lived in Easton, Maryland, and Chicago until his final days at the Beauvoir Confederate Home in Biloxi, Mississippi. During this period Ingraham wrote vast amounts of fiction.

He is said to have written 600 novels and 400 short novels issued by dime novel publisher Beadle and Adams and others. Ingraham wrote under his own name as well as a number of pseudonyms. He claimed to have written a 70,000 word novel in a week. Some of his novels were leaner revisions of his father's florid novels.

E.Z.C Judson, writing as Ned Buntline, is credited with discovering Buffalo Bill and writing the first novels about him. Yet Ingraham wrote dozens of novels about Cody and is primarily responsible for creating the legendary character. 

Examples of some of Ingraham's Buffalo Bill novels can be seen below, along with some on other subjects. A few novels can be found online here and here. More information about Ingraham can be found here and here. A master's thesis by Phyllis J. Gernhardt, "Prentiss Ingraham and the Dime Novel" was completed at Ball State University in 1992. He really deserves a full biography.

Ingraham died at the Confederate home on August 16, 1904, of Bright's disease. He is buried in the cemetery on the grounds of Beauvoir, formerly the home of Jefferson Davis. The home was extensively damaged by Hurricane Katrina. 

The Find-A-Grave entry for Prentiss is here [note misspelling of first name on the gravestone] and his father's is here. 

Unless otherwise noted, cover images are from Texas Tech University's Southwest Collection Archive. 

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Mississippi History Now

Source: eBay 

Source: Etsy.com 

"One of his most historically interesting protagonists appears in “Darkie Dan, the Colored Detective; or, The Mississippi Mystery” in an August 1902 edition of the The New York Dime Library. Beadle & Adams originally printed the story in 1881. Manumitted after saving his young mistress from a pack of wolves, Dan remains in faithful service to the Mississippi planter family, rescuing them from many trials involving the villainous criminal known as the “King of Diamonds.” Dan is one of the earliest African-American protagonists of the mystery genre, if not the first."

Source: University of Mississippi library exhibit

You can read the full text here. 

Source: The Commoner [Lincoln NE] 16 September 1904

Alabama Book Covers (7): Stephen Gresham

Back in the dim past of the 1970's I worked for several years at Draughon Library on the Auburn University campus. How we met is lost in the mists of time, but at some point I did meet a young English professor named Stephen Gresham. We spent significant time in the break room at the library discussing the possible supernatural or extraterrestrial overtones of such things as cattle mutilations. He was from Kansas and had a bit of personal experience with such matters, as I remember.

By the time I left Auburn in 1980, Dr. Gresham had begun writing fiction and has continued to do so ever since. Today he has retired from the English Department and has become well-known for his suspense, horror and young adult novels and stories written under his own name and two pseudonyms. 

He continues to live in Auburn. Below are covers from a few of his novels.